Have you ever wondered what happens to that tin of anchovies
or can of pasta sauce that you plucked from your pantry to donate to a food
drive?

Some Purdue graduate students in the Brian Lamb School of
Communication decided to find out through a community-based class project. They
interviewed and volunteered with 15 food bank clients for the Voices of Hunger
in Tippecanoe County project, an ongoing collaboration between communication professor
Mohan Dutta and Food Finders Food Bank, a local program that provides emergency
food aid.

Based on the interviews and through collaborative research
partnerships with individuals who experience hunger, the students found that
food bank clients live on a lack of protein, survive on meager portions, and
eat too many products that are high in salt. People were sent home with too
much canned corn and too many bags of potato chips, and one needy family was
left wondering what to make of a jar of olives stuffed with bleu cheese.
Because the food resources are primarily from donations, they often consist of
whatever people happen to select from their pantry.

But why should researchers take the time to converse with
people and create opportunities for them to photograph their experiences with
food in their homes as they unpack their products from the food bank? The
research is providing accurate information about the unique challenges people
face narrated through their own understanding of the problems they face. The research
has also helped Food Finders analyze some of the problems recipients had
experienced at individual food pantries.

"We had heard rumors before that some food pantries
were imposing rules that didn't come from Food Finders," explains Katy
Bunder, executive director of Food Finders. "For example, families of two
or fewer people had been told they had to choose between hot dogs or tuna, and that
they couldn't choose larger packs of chicken because their family was small.
Once this rumor was substantiated with the help of Purdue students, we were
able to work with the local food pantries to bring their policies in line with
Food Finders. This project is an interesting concept and we received some good
information from the experience."

Food finders volunteers distribute food at a mobile food pantry. Photo by of Michael Heinz, courtesy of the Journal and Courier.

The research team will next interview community members,
political leaders, and staff and volunteers at Food Finders and local food
pantries, and will continue to share their findings. The project's goal is to
build partnerships among the University, social service providers,
policymakers, and clients to address the obstacles to eliminating food
insecurity.

"I think people would be surprised to learn that a
large number of people around the Purdue area struggle with hunger and rely on
a food bank for resources," Dutta says. "The gap is often between
what we know about healthy food and the economic constraints that community
members experience, particularly in the backdrop of the increasing economic
difficulties for families around the country. For instance, people know that it
is important to eat fruits and vegetables for good health, but unless we have a
way for them to buy or receive this food, it is not possible. Communities may
also have physical barriers to good health. People may know that they should exercise,
but there may not be walkways or safe outdoor areas."

Analyzing and then reducing these health disparities is the
goal of a new liberal arts initiative, the Center on Poverty and Health
Inequities, known as COPHI, based at Purdue's Discovery Park and housed within
the Regenstrief Center for Healthcare Engineering. The center, led by Dutta,
will use research and outreach projects to reduce health disparities in
Indiana, the United States, and around the world, just as they are doing with
the Voices of Hunger project.

In the late 1990s, Dutta, also associate dean for research
and graduate education in the College of Liberal Arts, worked on campaigns to
improve people's health, but as he listened to the voices of people in the
target population, themes regarding food and hunger kept emerging. He realized
that many people, including Americans who are saturated with messages about
eating right, could not achieve good health because they struggle with hunger.

"Food is central to good health, and food security is
often the greatest challenge for a person's health," Dutta comments.

Today, he is looking at hunger and food resource issues in
India, Singapore, Bangladesh and the United States.

Historically, medical experts or educators have created
health campaigns for a local group, but Dutta argues that a community-driven
and culture-centered approach is necessary. The goal of this approach is for
solutions to originate from within the community, because they are more likely
to resonate with the needs of the community. If community members participate
in the decision making, a long-term solution is more likely to be obtained.
This is especially true as health educators reach out to countries around the
world.

Dutta has been conducting fieldwork since the 1990s in
highly impoverished areas of West Bengal, India. His goal is for
nongovernmental organizations in this rural area to engage the
cultural-centered approach so they can engage local institutional structures to
develop effective solutions. Local community participation is key, Dutta
reiterates.

"This approach is meant to create sustainability --
where a grant may run out of funding or academics come and go -- the interest
of the local community can make a difference in addressing those fundamental
problems that adversely impact the community," he says.

Shelves at the Food Finders Food Bank

The center and its related research projects are still in
their early phases, but the vision for the center is to evolve into a research
and advocacy clearinghouse on poverty and health care that engages with policymakers,
community advocates, and community activists.

"This new center at Purdue," Dutta reaffirms,
"provides an incredible cultural and global expertise base of Purdue
researchers working on issues of health care disparities. If we invest in this
area, then the choices of the topics that we can address, from universal health
care, to health care reform, and to health as a human right, are endless."

The
center is supported by projects funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research
and Quality, National Institutes of Health, the Regenstrief Center for
Healthcare Engineering at Discovery Park and the Brian Lamb School of
Communication. The new center will collaborate with the Indiana State
Department of Health, Indiana Minority Health Coalition, Northwest Indiana
Health Disparities Initiative and other community groups.

Other
areas of study:

* A
study of patient and provider communication, and how those interactions can
affect clinical decisions, testing, prescribing, and patient outcomes. The
study is led by Cleveland Shields, associate professor in human development and
family studies in the College of Health and Human Sciences.

*
Dutta also is working with a team of scholars, including Bart Collins, clinical
associate professor of communication and director of health care communications
at Regenstrief Center, to study heart health throughout the state. The goal is
to reduce the incidence of heart disease in the high-risk African-American
populations in Gary and Indianapolis.

*Future
topics of study will include health care delivery processes, the development of
preventive services, the development of community-academic partnerships in
addressing health care disparities and enhancing access to quality health
resources among underserved communities and populations.

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